Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Legendborn - Der geheime Bund by Tracy Deonn

187 reviews

nordicat's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Death of parent

Moderate: Murder, Racism, Blood, Misogyny, and Violence

Minor: Rape and Slavery

bimess_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Loved the narration though I had to speed it up a bit. 

The story captivated me but sometimes it made me put it away. Loved the magic systems introduced in this story. Bree's grief struck a personal cord of mine. And it made it difficult to read sometimes. Anyway, the plot twists didn't really feel like twists? But it still surprised me 🤭 

Sometimes I thought if I was really reading YA. 

But it was good. I would've given it five stars. 

But the idea of Sel and Bree together nauseates me. Considering how abusive he was at the beginning. And everything changes because what? A connection between king and merlin? lol hell nah.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Racism, War, Misogyny, Slavery, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Car accident and Transphobia

navibo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Omg I literally binged this book! It was kinda slow and hard to understand ( for me) the first 130 pages, but the rest was so gripping. I still probably don’t understand everything about the world building, but that’s cause I had no clue what happened in the Arthurian legend 🥲 Anyway, it doesn’t really matter if you don’t either, cause the plot and the relationships are amazing, the grieving process is realistic and well-written. The diversity of legendborn is pretty good as well, with both race, disabilities and lgbtq+🫶🏻
 P. S. The banter between some characters got me giggling for real👀

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Grief, and Racism

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Colonisation, Misogyny, and Kidnapping

Minor: Sexism, Police brutality, Blood, Car accident, and Torture

gabriella_'s review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Read this entire book on a flight to England and holy shit. The way this book captures grief, trauma, and how it can intersect with misogynoir was gripping.

Tracy Deonn is excellent at character writing and establishing interpersonal dynamics (and conflicts). She also creates a unique atmosphere with obvious (and not so obvious) foes. She empowers her protagonist and makes her multifaceted. She breathes life into Bree and, as a reader, makes her feel so real. And this doesn’t get into how she writes an ensemble cast either - good GOD I would be remiss if I didn’t get into that. 

Every character contributes something to the plot and it’s amazing that this author finds a way to do that without rendering them to be one-note or just a plot device. She has a plan for every character - and pieces of dialogue have a way of retaining relevance chapters later in a refreshing way.

I wish I had a book like this when I was a kid. 2,000/10 recommend reading this book if you are interested in fantasy and coming of age books. It’s the gift that keeps on giving! Tracy Deonn, thank you for writing this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Blood, Body horror, Death, Car accident, Child death, Violence, Kidnapping, Racism, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Classism, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, and War

dailbrae's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Violence

Moderate: Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Racism, Sexism, Blood, Car accident, Colonisation, Misogyny, Rape, and Slavery

Minor: Alcohol

ghostlyprince's review against another edition

emotional reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, and War

Moderate: Rape, Vomit, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Car accident, Kidnapping, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Alcohol, Stalking, Body shaming, Classism, and Confinement

chalkletters's review against another edition

adventurous emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I knew from Kate's description that Legendborn was dark academia meets Arthuriana with a fantastic twist. None of those things necessarily appeals to me particularly, but I did appreciate the moment I put the book down about a third in to ask myself whether that was 'the twist' or if there was another one coming. (I won't spoil anyone’s own appreciation by answering that question here.) 

Tracey Deonn, first and foremost, does that thing great young adult books do (and some other books, as well): all Bree's emotions are incredibly real and raw. The grief over losing her mother, the giddy attraction to Nick, the anger and disgust in response to racism all jump out from the pages. In turn, this makes the relationships very compelling — whether it's the romance or Bree’s friendship with Alice or the steadfast support of her father. Legendborn really fired on all emotional cylinders.

As discussed, the plot is also impactful with at least one jaw-dropping twist. Bree's storyline is tight and easy to keep track of. Her antagonism with Sel, and the way that changes over the course of the novel, really adds depth to the action. However, the number of scions and squires and descendants of the knights of the round table get a little hard to track. Reliably remembering whether a specific page is on Bree's side or against proved challenging, let alone accurately tracking who makes up each of the bonded pairs. It always becomes obvious who’s who fairly quickly, but apart from Greer few of the characters on this level stand out as particularly distinct, which did make the death scenes less emotionally-affecting than they could have been.

While it’s not a perfect book, I really enjoyed Legendborn and will definitely be adding the sequel to my TBR.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Grief, Death, Blood, and Racial slurs

Minor: Car accident, Slavery, Infidelity, and Misogyny

onefineelephant's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

9/10. I really enjoyed this book. It gave me chills, made me very emotional, and made me really care about the characters. I was taken on such a journey throughout this story. There were so many parts of the story that surprised me and added to the complexity of the plot. Each turn deepened the connections between the characters and the past. The Arthurian legend and the magic feel unique and compelling to me. I'm not really into love triangles, but this one feels very organic. I found this book from booktok and I knew it had racial tensions/racism as part of the plot, but since I like to go into books mostly blind, I was not expecting the story to address generational trauma and touch on the traumas of enslaved women. This is not a negative to me, but just not what I was expecting going into it. I figured the racial tensions would be more microaggressions and modern racist topics (which were also explored). I think this book will be even more interesting after already reading it for the first time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Racism, War, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Misogyny, Mental illness, Sexism, Blood, Body horror, Death, Medical content, Stalking, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Colonisation and Car accident

Minor: Rape, Alcohol, Kidnapping, Transphobia, and Slavery

This book deals with modern racism such as microaggressions and also generational trauma.

dododenise's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I liked it but there were a few things that made me stumble. 

The plot development seemed a bit chaotic and messy. The way the mystery unfolded felt unsatisfying, which is why I was never fully hooked. Additionally, there were quite a few long and dry info dumps that where exhausting to get through. That could have been done a lot more elegantly. 

There are a few very interesting characters, like Sel and William, but also a lot of characters that were severely abandoned. The cast of characters is big and it didn’t give them enough time. Most of them were just there, I didn’t care and forgot who they were. 

The relationship dynamics were very interesting though. Very quickly I wanted to go read fanfiction and that’s always a good sign. The love triangle situation better be resolved with polyamory! It would be perfect.

This series certainly has a lot of potential. It has great ideas and world building. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Racism, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Transphobia, Car accident, Murder, Slavery, Rape, Misogyny, Kidnapping, and Colonisation

Minor: Pregnancy

lillygabriella's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Oh boy, I am glad I waited so long to read this. Since I got to the end to find a cliffhanger waiting for a sequel which I hope is out now.

This was a very interesting spin on Arthurian legends, and a scathing critique of the power wielded by secret society members.  It is also and at it's core, a story of grief and coming to terms with that grief. 

I don't like to drop spoilers in my reviews, so I will just close by saying that this is a really great book and I highly recommend it. The quarter star off from 5 is for dropping all that Welsh through the book and then not having a pronunciation guide at the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Kidnapping